Many fans of British Comedy will have been delighted at this piece of news about the Little Britain team’s next venture, tentatively titled Come Fly With Me, entering production later this year.
There will be others who will lament what this news means for one of the more intriguing projects in our future.
Paul King, writer and director of the recent British comedy film Bunny and the Bull, has been named as the director for Come Fly With Me, and this serves as an indicator that the Paddington Bear movie King was developing for Warner Bros is on hold.
The Michael Bond stories of a small bear from deepest, darkest Peru are full of charm and the character is well known across the world, which makes this a prime property for a big screen adaptation.
King’s work with The Mighty Boosh as well as his dabbling with Garth Marenghi make him a familiar figure to fans of the kind of British comedy which revels in its twists of the surreal and visually arresting and imaginative execution, and Bunny and the Bull was a great debut earning comparisons with the early days of Jeunet & Caro, as well as the master Terry Gilliam.
In a recent interview with Roll Credits King talked of his forthcoming projects,
I’m developing another fantasy script of my own, and I’ve still got a play in the pipeline. It’s one of those weird things because you’re not sure what’s going to happen first and you need to develop far more than you could ever actually do. But hopefully, if all goes well, Paddington will be the next thing.
King has admitted his love for Paddington Bear and has talked of the endearing quality of the marmalade chomping bear, which he hoped to bring to the big screen using a combination of live action and animation – perhaps the 2D animation of the Paddington cartoons of recent years. Booshman Noel Fielding was even rumoured to play the Peruvian cousin of Paddington.
King had been writing the movie with Hamish McColl, who is attached to write the sequel to the Rowan Atkinson vehicle Johnny English, due to start filming at Universal in the summer, but with King apparently throwing in with the Little Britain team for the long haul, does this leave Paddington Bear stranded?
